Ask the Author: D.A. Gray
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D.A. Gray
It isn't summer but there are so many important works to read. Some will be added as I discover new authors or look for new material to teach. This is more of an idea of how those selections are made and what is on the shelves at this moment.
Something New - Looking forward to Maggie Nelson's release of On Freedom
Something Classic - Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon
An Old Friend - Will probably finish Kurt Vonnegut's works this year, A Man Without a Country is next up.
Finishing what I haven't finished - Pynchon's Bleeding Edge got set to the side during the semester, a strong work that I regret setting down but Pynchon requires almost complete absorption.
Important Right Now - Eddie S. Glaude's Begin Again (a 'Conversation' with Baldwin who has always been one of the most important American voices)
Poetry - Kevin Young's anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Song & Struggle
- Valzhyna Mort's Music for the Dead and Resurrected
(there will be many more in this list though I read them as I discover new voices)
Civil / Human Rights - James Cone's The Cross & The Lynching Tree; Elizabeth Catte's Pure America
History - Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns (If you haven't read Caste, please rectify that - it's an urgently needed conversation that some have been shutting their ears to for far too long.)
A Genre I Haven't Really Explored Before - Octavia Butler's works
Shakespeare - Try to read 2-3 a year. Merchant of Venice and Richard III are on my nightstand.
Something New - Looking forward to Maggie Nelson's release of On Freedom
Something Classic - Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon
An Old Friend - Will probably finish Kurt Vonnegut's works this year, A Man Without a Country is next up.
Finishing what I haven't finished - Pynchon's Bleeding Edge got set to the side during the semester, a strong work that I regret setting down but Pynchon requires almost complete absorption.
Important Right Now - Eddie S. Glaude's Begin Again (a 'Conversation' with Baldwin who has always been one of the most important American voices)
Poetry - Kevin Young's anthology African American Poetry: 250 Years of Song & Struggle
- Valzhyna Mort's Music for the Dead and Resurrected
(there will be many more in this list though I read them as I discover new voices)
Civil / Human Rights - James Cone's The Cross & The Lynching Tree; Elizabeth Catte's Pure America
History - Isabel Wilkerson's The Warmth of Other Suns (If you haven't read Caste, please rectify that - it's an urgently needed conversation that some have been shutting their ears to for far too long.)
A Genre I Haven't Really Explored Before - Octavia Butler's works
Shakespeare - Try to read 2-3 a year. Merchant of Venice and Richard III are on my nightstand.
D.A. Gray
Driving at two a.m. you pass a pale-faced hitchhiker standing beside the mile marker. You've seen him at every mile marker ever since you felt that bump in the road.
D.A. Gray
Read. Read voraciously. Find the voices that speak to you, that address the world that you're seeing, that offer clarity. Don't stop there. Read authors far outside your comfort zone. And use these ideas of others to interrogate your own assumptions about the world.
Practice. Write daily, unafraid to crank out a crappy first draft. If your story hits a roadblock, write another one, letting your subconcious find a detour around that roadblock. Write without thinking about publishing. Think about the story you want to read that you can't find anywhere. Write that.
Revise. Read your work aloud. Mark the places where you stumble. Don't just copy edit typos and grammatical mistakes. Mark the places where you trip up in reading it. There is usually a reason why, even if it's not immediately apparent.
Practice. Write daily, unafraid to crank out a crappy first draft. If your story hits a roadblock, write another one, letting your subconcious find a detour around that roadblock. Write without thinking about publishing. Think about the story you want to read that you can't find anywhere. Write that.
Revise. Read your work aloud. Mark the places where you stumble. Don't just copy edit typos and grammatical mistakes. Mark the places where you trip up in reading it. There is usually a reason why, even if it's not immediately apparent.
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